


Pranks, Food, and Other Shenanigans

by Taliax



Series: Will Prank For Food [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Humor, Not the Riku Replica you're thinking of, OC, Original Character(s), Pranks and Practical Jokes, Rock Band, Will Prank For Food, fifteenth member, not as terrible as it sounds surprisingly, terrible singing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-15 07:35:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4598310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taliax/pseuds/Taliax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bonus stories in the same universe as "Will Prank For Food."  Current Chapter:  R-2 is Four.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In the universe of “Will Prank For Food,” takes place during chapter 41, while Xenan and Xion are having their “girls’ night” and pranking Axel. If you haven’t read WPFF, it might not make much sense, but basically R-2 is one of Riku’s replicas who has weird color-controlling powers and is super terrible at singing.

“Can I sing, Mister Skinny Flaming Pyro Man?  Please?  Pretty please, with a heart on top?”

R-2 hovered close to Axel’s face on his windsail, hands clasped together in a begging gesture.  The redhead sighed.  Thankfully, he’d developed a high level of patience over the last several months.

“We’ll see,” he said without making any promises.

“Yay!  You didn’t say no!”  R-2 grinned and flew off to assist Demyx in hooking up the Wii.  “Red goes with red, white goes with whites, yellow goes with yellow…”

Axel shook his head, chuckling a little.  Sure, the kid’s singing voice was the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard hooked up to an amp and played over screechy untuned guitars, but as long as he could be kept away from the microphone, Axel didn’t mind babysitting him.  Besides, it would be good for Xion to have a “girls’ night” with Xenan; maybe it would keep him from having to deal with some girl-exclusive issues he’d been dreading…

The game’s loud intro riff shook him out of his thoughts – literally, Demyx had hooked up his amps and turned them up to the point where the music shook the floor.  Luckily for the rest of the Organization, they’d set up in the Crooked Ascension, near the base of the castle.

“Yeah, there we go!”  Demyx fist-pumped the air, his other hand squeezing the plastic microphone, which he shouted into.  “Who’s ready to _ROOOOOCK?”_

Roxas plugged his ears, wincing.  “Are guys’ nights always this loud…?”

Axel shrugged.  “When they involve Demyx, yeah.”

“I like it!”  R-2 grinned, spinning the drumsticks in his fingers like two tiny propellers.  “I’m ready to rock!”

Axel laughed, throwing a guitar strap over his shoulder.  At least R-2 was on drums, where he was pretty successful at whacking the plastic drum set in time with the beat.  Roxas, who was on the other guitar, hadn’t played much Rock Band before, but Axel had discovered on the few times he had that the kid was a natural.

Demyx commanded a Wii remote, clicking past the intro music and scrolling to _Band Tour._ He and Axel (and on rarer occasions, Xigbar) had unlocked all the songs ages ago, but he always chose ‘Tour’ over ‘Quickplay.’  It was just more fun to picture himself in a real band, flying down an empty highway in some beat-up old van, blasting his awesome rock music on the way to his next concert.

“Alright, guys!  What should we name our band?”  He asked excitedly, turning away from the giant flat-screen TV they’d set up in the front of the elevator-like room.  The Organization didn’t technically _have_ a flat-screen TV, or any TV for that matter, but it was easy enough to borrow one of the demos from the non-24-hour Twi-Mart and return it before morning.  “I’m thinking ‘Demyx and the Dancers.’  It’s got a nice ring to it, right?”

Roxas frowned, confused.  “I don’t know how to dance.”

“You don’t have to!  I can just dress you guys up in little Dancer Nobody costumes; you’d be so cute~”

“Demyx, I’d rather set myself on fire.”  Axel shot him a glare that threatened to do the same.  “Besides, ‘Axel and the Assassins’ is much cooler.”

“What _is_ an assassin, anyway?”  Roxas asked, making the redhead wince slightly.

“Y’know, better not go with that name either…”

“Ooh!  We could be ‘Crayon Box,’ and all dress up in different colors—”

“Mm, not feeling that either,” Axel quickly interrupted, before he could be puppy-eyed into wearing bright chartreuse or something equally painful.  “You got any ideas, Roxas?”

The younger Nobody looked up in surprise.  “Me?  Um… I guess we could call it, like, ‘The Nobodies’ or something?  ‘Cause we’re all Nobodies?”

“Yeah, if you want to be _boring_ about it…”  Demyx muttered, then lit up with a new idea.  “I know!  We could call it ‘Nobody’s Heartless’!  It’s like Roxas’s idea, only better ‘cause it’s a pun!  Get it?”

“Ooh, I get it!”  R-2 laughed after taking a few seconds to let the joke sink in.  “Because we’re mostly Nobodies, but we have hearts, so we’re not heartless, but we fight Heartless… wait, I don’t get it.”

 “Yeah, sure, whatever.”  Axel agreed with Demyx, rolling his eyes.  The pun might be terribly overdone, but at least it didn’t require him to wear a stupid Dancer costume or eye-bleeding colors.  “Are we going to play or what?”

“Yay!  Playing time!”  R-2 clapped, knocking the drumsticks together.  “What song are we going to play, Dem-Dem?  Can we play ‘Colors of the Wind’?”

“Uh, that’s not a rock song, R-2.”  Demyx grinned sympathetically after typing in the band name and scrolling through the song list.  “I like singing ‘Dani California.’  That alright with you guys?”

Roxas shrugged; R-2 muttered something about ‘Colors of the Wind’ being whatever kind of song it wanted to be.  Axel gave Demyx permission to select the song.

“Whoa whoa whoa, what are you doing?”  Demyx asked R-2, who had tried to set his difficulty level on drums to Expert.

“I want to be an expert, so I’m playing on Expert,” he replied, like it made perfect sense.  “I’m good at hitting things.  I can do it.”

“R-2, you’ve only played this game once.”  That had been with him and Xenan, when he’d tried to show his friends some culture.  Unfortunately, Xenan wasn’t a fan of rock music, and R-2 kept begging for the microphone, so he hadn’t tried again.  “It’s okay to work your way up from Easy.”

“It’s okay!  I can do it!”  R-2 grinned confidently, coat flashing bright orange.

Axel shook his head.  “If he makes us fail out, he can set it lower next time.”  It wouldn’t do any good to argue with the kid.  He set his difficulty on guitar to Hard, and Roxas picked Medium.  Demyx always picked Easy on microphone, just because he didn’t like the game judging his voice.  He knew he was an awesome singer, and that was what counted.

The drum part came in first, loud but steady.  To Axel and Demyx’s surprise, R-2 kept up so far.  They didn’t have too much time to watch before their own parts started, and they had to focus on the music and scrolling notes.

 _“Gettin’ born in the state of Mississppi, Papa was a copper and Momma was a hippie,”_ Demyx sang, swaying in time with the music.

“What’s Mississppi?”  Roxas stopped playing for a second to ask.

“Hey, keep playing!”  Axel watched his icon on the score bar drop.  “It’s just a place in some world somewhere.  Doesn’t matter.”

The younger Nobody frowned, but he picked up the notes again.  “None of these words make any sense.”

“It’s music,” Demyx said when there was a break in the lyrics.  “It doesn’t have to make sense.”

“I don’t get it either,” R-2 agreed chirpily while keeping the beat, bouncing up and down as he sat on his windsail.  Somehow, even the Expert-level notes consistently fell to his flashing drumsticks.  “But I like drums.  I get to whack all the different colors!”

_“Black bandana, sweet Louisiana, robbin’ on a bank in the state of Indiana…”_

Roxas didn’t understand most of the words, but it was still fun playing.  Sometimes Axel would get a sudden burst of spontaneity and slide to his knees, lifting his guitar to activate Overdrive .  Laughing, Roxas tried to mimic him, but it always resulted in him missing several notes.

R-2 bobbed along to the beat, enjoying the miniature party.  He’d never been to a party before, but this was close, right?  “Party” didn’t have a clear definition in his internal dictionary that _Vexen_ had programmed, but Demyx said it was a fun time when you hung out with your friends and played games and ate food.  All they were missing was the food…

“I’ve got an idea!”  He shouted, waving a drumstick-wielding hand in the air.

“Whoa, save it for later!”  Axel told him.  “Don’t let yourself fail out!”

In the second that R-2 had stopped using his right hand, a dozen notes had flown past him.  His icon began to drop like a deflated balloon.

“Oops.”  He grinned sheepishly.

“ _California rest in peace; simultaneous release…”_ Demyx sang like he hadn’t noticed any of it.

R-2 waited patiently, hitting as many notes as he could between that time and when the song came to an end.  “Now can I tell you my idea?”

But the others didn’t hear him; Roxas and Axel were busy gaping at the scores that had appeared after the song’s end.  “Whoa!”  “No way!”

Demyx laughed.  “Haha, okay, who was helping R-2…?”  He trailed off when he realized Roxas and Axel both would have been too busy with their own instruments.

“I did it!”  R-2 jumped up, hopping over to hi-five a confused Roxas.  “I’m a drum expert!  Yay!”

Axel sighed but shook his head in amusement.  “Should I even be surprised…?”

The screen announced R-2’s score as 85%, with the title of “Most Energy.”   Not the highest score on the screen (Axel had a solid 92 and Demyx had a perfect 100), but considering he was a newb to the game and playing on _Expert,_ it was surprising, to say the least.

“Nice,” Roxas congratulated him, smiling at his own score.  96% on Medium was pretty good; maybe it was time to try Hard.  The fifth fret made him nervous, but it was just a game.  It wouldn’t hurt to try.

“Nice to you, too.”  Axel gave him a friendly smack on the shoulder.  “I wonder how you’d handle a real guitar.”

“Aww, yeah!”  Demyx grinned in excitement.  “We can get Roxas a guitar, and R-2 some drums, and I’ll have my sitar, and we could start a _real_ band!”

“Ooh!  That’s even better than my idea!”  R-2 hopped back on his windsail and spun three-sixties in mid air.

“Hey, where does that leave me?”  Axel raised an eyebrow.  Demyx waved a hand dismissively.

“You’re not too bad at singing.  I guess you could be our lead singer…”  He frowned thoughtfully, swinging the microphone by its cord.  “Or you could just play the tambourine.  It looks like your chakrams, right?  It’d be a perfect fit.”

Axel snorted.  “You’re an idiot, Demyx.”

“Hey!”  He pouted.  “Am not!”

“Can I tell you guys my idea now?”  R-2 interrupted before Demyx could get any more offended.

“What is it?”  Roxas asked.

“We should get food!  Then this would be a party, right Dem-Dem?”  He grinned at Demyx.  “’Cause we have friends and games already.”

The older Nobody grinned back.  “Sounds like a good plan to me!”

“Heh, you guys sound like Xenan.”  Axel smiled.  “But I won’t say no to food either.”

“We’re getting ice cream?”  Roxas asked hopefully, making his friend laugh.

“Is ice cream good party food?”  R-2 asked.

“Ice cream is the _best_ party food.  Of course we can get some,” Axel replied to both of them.

Demyx pouted, disagreeing.  “I think cake is the best party food.”

“Yeah, well, no one’s letting you make a cake.”  Axel opened a dark corridor to the kitchen, where he kept his extra stash of sea-salt in the freezer.  Without Xigbar around, he didn’t have to worry about anyone stealing it.  …Though he could swear one or two still went missing every week.  He had a theory about that, but he hadn’t yet checked Saïx’s trash can for ice cream sticks to confirm it.

“Hey, my cake is good…!”  Demyx tried to argue, but the redhead had already left.  “Okay, so maybe it made people crazy, but that was Xenan’s fault.  And it was fun.”

Roxas stared at him.  “…Is cake dangerous?”

“Yes,” Axel answered, stepping back through the corridor with a box of ice cream bars.

“Cake is _very_ dangerous.”  R-2 shuddered.  “I don’t like cake.”

“…Okay?”  Roxas said in confusion, accepting a sea-salt ice cream from Axel.  “Thanks.”

“No problem.”  His friend grinned, then realized there were only three bars left.  At least there was still one for each of them.  “Hey, wasn’t this a new box…?”

“Sorry.”  Roxas’s face flushed guiltily.  “Me and Xion ate some for breakfast the other day, because I thought it would cheer her up…”

“You could ask first, y’know.”  Axel said with a half-smile.  “But don’t worry about it.  I’ll just let tomorrow night’s ice cream be on you.”

His friend laughed a little at that, while Axel stared absently at his ice cream.  Honestly, he’d hoped a certain blue-haired friend of his had been the thief, if only to prove that he still enjoyed the dessert they’d once shared…

“I’m done!”  R-2 exclaimed happily, turning his coat sea-salt blue and tossing his empty stick in the air.  He must have scarfed the ice cream down in about two bites to be done already.  “Are you guys ready to play again?  Can I play microphone?”

“But you were awesome on drums!”  Demyx encouraged him with a smack on the shoulder.  “Why don’t you keep doing that?”

“’Cause I already know how to play drums.  I want to learn something else now.”  He stood on the windsail, scooping up the microphone Demyx had let fall to the ground in exchange for his ice cream.

“Uh, well—” Demyx floundered for another excuse.  “You haven’t tried guitar yet!  Why don’t you try that?”

“I’ll switch with you, R-2,” Axel volunteered, finishing off his dessert and trading the ice cream stick for two drumsticks.  “I’m not too shabby on drums either.”

“Well… okay.”  He sighed, turning on his Puppy Eyes.  “Then can I sing?  Pretty please, Dem-Dem?”

“I’ll make you a deal,” Axel interrupted, since Demyx was wincing with guilt in response to being blasted full-on by those aqua Puppy Eyes.  “If you can get better than 85% on guitar on Expert, you can be on mic next.”

“Really?”  R-2 asked eagerly.  “I can?”

“ _If_ you can do that,” the redhead repeated.  After all, what were the chances he could do even better on guitar than he had on drums?  Sure, drums took rhythm, but guitar and bass took a little more fine-tuned finger-coordination.  Though R-2 _was_ good at drawing, and that took fine motor skills… but he mostly drew big pictures.  Axel shook his head; it was nothing to worry about.  The kid couldn’t be good at _everything._

“I’ll do it!”  R-2 beamed, coat rippling as it faded to a soft gradient of sunset shades.  Axel laughed and ruffled his hair.

“Good luck, kid.”  He was going to need it.

Demyx stayed on microphone; R-2 lent his windsail to Axel to use as the drum chair.  He slung the guitar strap over his head and flashed a smile at Roxas, who gave him a thumbs-up.

“Alright, my turn to pick the song,” Axel spoke up, tapping the yellow and blue circles to scroll through the song list.  “Let’s do…”  Wait.  He’d been about to tap on ‘Creep’ by Radiohead, but it wasn’t just him and Demyx or Xigbar anymore.  Now he had to actually think about whether his songs were kid-friendly.  “Uh, on second thought…”  Nope, ‘Roxanne’ definitely wasn’t… aaaand ‘Run to the Hills’ probably wasn’t the best pick either…   Dang.  Having kids was hard.  “…Let’s go with ‘Green Grass and High Tides,’” he finally decided.

“Aww, really?”  Demyx whined.  “That one goes on _forever_!  And it barely has any words!”

“Sounds good to me,” R-2 said.  “Green is a nice color.”

“But I just have to stand around a lot while you guys play,” Demyx still pouted, until the younger replica grinned at him.

“That’s okay!  I can sing it if you don’t want to!”

“Uh-uh nope, nevermind.  I’m good,” he quickly shut up.

Axel gave him a pointed look and whispered, “It’s the hardest song on guitar.”  Other than it being appropriate, that was the reason he’d chosen it.

“Ohhh.”  Demyx nodded in understanding.

“So are we going to play?”  Roxas asked.

“Yep.  Get ready, this one might be a little tougher than you’re used to,” Axel warned.

“It’s okay!  I’m sure we can do it!”  R-2 cheered, turning his coat bright grass green to match the song.

Axel and Demyx shared a triumphant look.  There was no way he could do it.

The notes quickly started scrolling down the giant screen.  R-2 smiled; this wasn’t so bad.  He couldn’t quite figure out how to reach the orange button, and he couldn’t always time the colored buttons with the strumming-thing, but he was _probably_ hitting 85% of the notes so far…

Until the bass picked up, and everything started to feel a lot, lot faster.

R-2 squeaked slightly, trying to keep up with the quickly flurrying notes.  “Come on fingers, be faster,” he muttered to his hands, but it didn’t help him coordinate them any better.  His icon dropped like a rock in a swimming pool.

“Aww…”  He sighed, losing confidence.  “I’m never going to get to sing…”

Then out of nowhere, an Assassin sprang into non-existence directly in front of Axel.

“Ack!”  The fire-wielder jumped up, dropping one of his drumsticks.  Demyx burst out laughing, and both of their scores plummeted.  Axel quickly dove to hit the pause button.

“Oi, this is guys’ night!  Not ‘lesser Nobodies’ night!”

The Assassin’s capped head drooped even lower than usual, and its bladed arms flopped.

“Don’t give me that look.  What’s the deal?”  Axel raised an eyebrow, then listened to his minion’s telepathic voice in his head as it flapped its arms wildly.

_“I apologize for the intrusion, my liege, but there are intruders!  In your bedchamber!”_

He rolled his eyes.  “It’s a bed _room,_ Dennis.  No one’s said ‘bedchamber’ for the last hundred years.”

R-2 and Roxas looked to each other in confusion, unable to hear the Assassin’s mental voice.  “Dennis?”  “Bedchamber?”

_“Oh.  Then there are intruders in your bedroom, my liege!”_

Axel sighed.  His Assassins were easily spooked; for all he knew, it could be as simple as a stray cleaning Dusk.  Still, he’d better check to make sure, if only to keep Dennis from freaking out.

“I’ll be right back,” he told the others.  “It sounds like someone might’ve broken into my room.”

“Intruders?”  Demyx’s eyes widened, seeming as worried as Dennis was.  “Oh no!  What if they find my candy stash!?”

He dashed out through a dark corridor; Axel made one of his own and disappeared too.

“…That was weird,” Roxas said, staring at the empty space where the older Nobodies had been.

“I wish I could talk to the Mr. Faces.  I bet they have cool stuff to say.”  R-2 smiled, flicking the whammy bar of his guitar absently.  “What about you, Rox?  Can you talk to the Mr. Faces?”

“Uh…”  Roxas rubbed the back of his head.  “Sometimes the Samurai talk to me, but they’re pretty quiet.  They just guard my room.  I talked to the Dusks to tell them not to color on Xion’s face when she was asleep, but they don’t really listen.”

“Oh.  That’s not very nice.”  R-2 frowned, then looked down at the microphone Demyx had dropped.  “This song is really hard… I thought I could do it, but I don’t know now.  I might not get to sing…”

Roxas frowned too.  “Axel tells me I miss obvious stuff, so I might be wrong, but it sounds like they really don’t want you to sing.  Do you know why?”

He sighed, coat fading navy blue.  “Dem-Dem and Xen-Xen say my singing hurts.  But that’s just ‘cause they won’t let me practice.  I’m sure if I could practice more, I’d get better,” he finished with determination.

“Huh…”  Roxas crossed his arms, staring at the microphone thoughtfully.  It seemed kind of mean to keep R-2 from singing.  They were all friends, right?  Shouldn’t they all try to help each other get better?  Maybe the rest of them wouldn’t, but he suddenly thought of a way that he could help R-2 get his wish.  “Hey!  I’m pretty good at guitar.  Why don’t we switch?  I don’t know if I can get a high enough score on Expert, but I can try.”

“Really?”  R-2 beamed, suddenly flashing a bright orange.  “You’d do that for me?”

“That’s what friends are for, right?”  Roxas smiled back.  “Mine’s on Hard, but bass is usually easier.  I think you can handle it.”

“Yay!”  The replica hopped in the air, trying to do a heel-click.  It didn’t really work, and he landed awkwardly on his prosthetic leg, but the pain couldn’t keep the smile off his face.  “You’re the best, Rox!  I know you can do it!”

He grinned, a little embarrassed at his friend’s confidence.  “Well, I’ll try my best…”

They swapped identical guitars right before Axel reentered the room, shaking his head in confusion.

“Maybe Dennis is losing it…”

“What happened?”  Roxas asked, trying to hide his nervousness at Axel discovering their swap.

“Nobody was there,” he answered.

“Nobody?  Which Nobody?”  R-2 asked, making Axel snort in spite of himself.

“Just nobody.  Lowercase N, no one.  Not _a_ Nobody.”

“Oh.”

Demyx returned a few seconds later.  “Alright, guys!  My candy stash is safe!  Nobody will ever find it now!”

“Which Nobod—” R-2 started to ask again, but Axel interrupted.

“Let me guess, you hid it all under your dirty underwear.”

Demyx blushed a little.  “…Maybe.”

“Everyone’s back now, so can we play?”  R-2 hopped eagerly, clicking the buttons on his guitar.

“Sure, just let us get situated again.”  Axel picked up the drumsticks he’d dropped, settling back onto the windsail; Demyx rubbed the microphone against the front of his coat.

“Alright, Nobody’s Heartless!”  He grinned at his fellow band members.  “You’re doing great!  Now Axel, count us in!  One two three four!”

He frowned when the redhead didn’t tap his drumsticks together with his count, but he did at least press the button to resume the game.

“Eep!  I wasn’t ready yet!”  R-2 pouted, trying to find his place in the notes.  Why weren’t any of them disappearing when he hit them?

Oh yeah.  He switched with Roxas.  His notes were on the left side now, not the right.  Phew, that looked much easier anyway.

Meanwhile, Roxas was trying to find his groove again.  He was more used to playing bass than guitar, but it wasn’t really that different.  Guitar was just harder.  He’d started bass on this song on Hard, so he’d had a little bit of time to adjust to using the fifth note, but shifting his pinkie still took some getting used to.

Soon the vocals finally came in, and Demyx stopped doing his awkward background dancing, much to Axel’s relief. _“In a place you only dream of, where your soul is always free; silver stages, golden curtains, filled my head plain as could be…”_

Somehow, his singing made Roxas relax a little.  This was fun, and it was just a game.  Even if R-2 was kind of counting on him to get over 85%...

Still, he found his fingers found their notes more easily if he didn’t think so hard.  Like they knew what to do, and he just had to let them do it.  Well, he guessed Axel _had_ said he was a natural…. Maybe his Somebody had played guitar?  That would be pretty cool.

“Whoa!”  Axel finally spared a glance at the scoring bar.  “Flaming pants, R-2, no way you’re that good!”  His icon kept bouncing up and down as he hit and missed notes, but it always stayed in the upper third.

“I’m not.”  He grinned at Axel, then quickly shared it with Roxas, who looked a little embarrassed.  “But you guys all help me be better.”

“Aww,” Demyx held the microphone over his heart when he had a break in the lyrics.  “Thanks, R-2.”

If Axel wasn’t busy drumming, he would’ve facepalmed.  Did the other Nobody forget that they _didn’t_ want R-2 to do that well?  At this rate, it looked like they were going to have to metaphorical nails shoved in their ears…

But he still hadn’t gotten to the first solo.  He still had plenty of chances to mess up.

“ _For you have to love, believe and feel before the burst of tambourines take you there…”_

While Demyx sang the chorus, Roxas was just glad that the two older Nobodies hadn’t realized the switch.  If either of them looked over and saw how furiously he was strumming compared to R-2, they’d know something was up, but hopefully they’d stay focused on their own instruments.

Well, Roxas had _thought_ he was strumming furiously before.  Then the first guitar solo kicked in.

His eyes could hardly keep track of the notes.  Still, he took a deep breath and, like he’d promised R-2 he would, he tried his best.

As it turned out, his best was pretty good.  Of course, he missed several notes, but he hit more than he missed, and he didn’t lose his nerve.  His fingers were getting pretty exhausted by the time he reached the end of the solo, with a score of 80%.

Axel whistled in surprised admiration.  Sure, he didn’t want R-2 to sing, but that was still a pretty good solo for the kid.  And it still wasn’t above 85%, so he relaxed a little.

“Good job,” Roxas told R-2, trying not to sound suspicious.  The replica laughed.

“Haha, you too!”  He replied with a grin.

_“Those who don’t believe me, find your souls and set them free; those who do, believe and know that time will be your key…”_

Roxas relaxed again when the second verse started, appreciating the slight break.  Still, he kept focused; if he wanted to hit 85%, he’d have to do better.  He wasn’t sure how much time he had left, though, this song was going on _forever_ …

His score stayed high up on the bar while Demyx finished the second verse and chorus, making what he probably thought were dramatic hand motions as he did so.  Roxas tried to ignore that and keep playing, especially when the second solo started.

“ _Another_ one!?”  He couldn’t help exclaiming, even though it threatened to give him away.

“Yep!  It’s okay though, I’m sure I’m going to be awesome at it!”  R-2 beamed with a wink.  Huh.  That was a pretty good way of covering for him.

“Yeah, I’m sure you will,” Roxas said, trying to keep smiling too.

“Rox, what’s gotten into you?”  Axel called with a frown.  “Come on, you’re better than that!”

“Huh?”  Oh.  He hadn’t been paying attention to it, but his score – well, the icon for his guitar, which R-2 was controlling – was staggering in the middle third.  “Uh… it’s the orange note.  Yeah.  It’s really, um, hard.”  Like talking was, when he was trying to focus.

“I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it.”  His friend smiled encouragingly.

“Thanks, Axel.”  Now, he _really_ had to focus.  Those blue and yellow notes were flying back and forth, almost faster than he could move his fingers.  And it didn’t get any easier from there; this solo had to be _twice_ as hard as the first one!

Miraculously, he managed to play all the glowing silver notes, adding a little bit of energy to his bar at the bottom.  He hadn’t been able to activate Overdrive all this song, but if he could get the silver notes once or twice more, that would definitely help…

As it was, he could hardly keep up with the regular notes, much less the silver ones.  His hand cramped up, and he missed a dozen all at once.

“Ow…”  He tried to hide his wince.  R-2 was finally catching up again, playing at even pace; he couldn’t risk messing up now…

To his relief, Axel hit a short flurry of notes and activated his Overdrive, sending the whole band’s score climbing upwards.  Roxas exhaled a deep breath and relaxed again.  His hand still hurt, but he could hold out.  This solo had to be over soon, right?

A little later, he hit another string of silver notes, filling his power bar enough to activate his own Overdrive.  It made up for his tired fingers, which were still pretty nimble as they flashed across the keys, shredding the notes by the second.  Unfortunately, there were _so many_ seconds… how long _was_ this song?

Long.  Very, very long.  As it turned out, it was _five whole minutes_ before his solo finally ended, with a long string of orange notes, followed by one long blue one.

But it was worth it: a shocking score of 89% flashed at the top of his section of the screen.

“ _WHAAAAAAT?”_ Demyx stopped his background dancing to burst out.  Axel was so stunned, nearly half of the ending bonus scrolled by before he bothered to hit his drums.

Roxas beamed, hardly believing it either, but he kept his mouth shut and strummed wildly for the ending bonus. R-2 slid to his knees, raising his guitar over his head as he pressed all the buttons at once.

“Sheesh, that kid is insane.”  Axel shook his head in disbelief.

“Thanks!”  R-2 called to him.

Roxas laughed, ignoring the cramping in his fingers.  He could see it now: only one set of notes at the end of the bonus… one chord… green, yellow, and blue…

And he hit it.  R-2 and Axel hit theirs too, sending a winged score flying to the front of the screen.

“Yay!  We did it!”  R-2 flung his guitar off of his shoulders and into the air, letting it crash noisily on the floor.

“Sheesh, I know you pwned that song, but don’t break Demyx’s game,” Axel told him.

“Sorry Dem-Dem!”  He scooped the plastic guitar up again and brushed it off.

“Forget that, what score did you get?”  The older blond asked eagerly, clicking to the next screen.

“He couldn’t have gotten above an 85.  There’s just no way.”  Axel kept shaking his head, hoping he was right…

Roxas smiled.  Below R-2’s name was the golden score of 86%.

“Yaaaaaaaaaay!”  R-2 cheered, hi-fiving Roxas.  After deciding that wasn’t enough thanks, he squeezed the blond Nobody in a crushing hug.  “We did it~!  We did it~!”

Axel and Demyx groaned in unison, sharing a look of impending doom.  But he couldn’t go back on his word; somehow R-2 had done it, and so he got to sing.

Demyx sadly passed over the microphone, holding it out with both hands like it was a mystical sword.  “Goodbye, my love, I’ll miss you…”

Axel smacked him upside the head.  “Get over yourself, Demyx.”

“Hey!  You’re as bad as Xenan!”

He rolled his eyes.  _“Someone’s_ gotta keep you from sapping up the place.”

“More like someone _needs_ to sap the place… or something like that…”  Demyx caught the guitar that R-2 tossed to him.

He squealed in excitement, hugging the microphone to his chest.  “Thank you thank you thank you thank you~!”

Roxas patiently waited until R-2 had picked his song before he let out the breath he’d been holding and let the truth spill out.  “Me and R-2 switched guitars.”

Axel and Demyx stared at him, making him blush.  “You _what!?”_

But by that time, R-2 had already started belting out the lyrics to ‘Dead on Arrival.’

“ _I hope this is the laaaaaast time, ‘cause I’d never say no, to yoooooooouuuuuu!”_

Axel plugged his ears.  “I’m saying no, I’m saying no, I’m saying no…”

_“This conversation’s been, dead on arrival!”_

“I think I’m dead…”  Demyx whimpered.

_“And there’s no way to talk to yooouu~!  This conversation’s been, dead on, a rivalry, goes so pink—between me, and this loss of sleep – over bluuuueeee~!”_

When R-2 looked back and grinned at him, Roxas tried to smile back.  The other boy didn’t seem to notice, but it was a pained grimace.  Possibly even a dying grimace.

To everyone’s relief, he failed out about ten seconds later.  “Aww…”

Demyx gave him a consolation pat.  “It’s alright, little buddy.  It’s for the best.”

“It’s okay!”  R-2 lit up with an idea.  “You guys just have to lift up your guitars to bring me back in, right?”

The three others shared a look, then let themselves fail out too.


	2. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1st person from R-2's perspective. Why am I writing this? It's past midnight and I have class at nine tomorrow and college life ftw

Today I am Four.  Four is a good number.  Four is Vexen’s number, but I’ve never met numbers one two or three.  Unless you count me and R-1.  He’s one, I’m two.  R-2.  But Vexen is just IV, Four, not R-4.  Not a replica of Riku.  Will he make an R-3?  Then we will be one two three four.

Four is the best day, because today I get to come out of the Tank~!  No more orange and bubbles and syrupiness, I get to be out in the real world with R-1 and talk and dance with no wires—!

“Hold still, Two,” Vexen mumbles through a frown, but I can’t can’t stay still, I’m in the real air, I’ve never been in real air before but R-1 told me in my mind and he’s right it’s so light and fluffy I love air~

“I love air,” I tell Vexen, with my mouth-words, not mind-words like how I talk to R-1.  I’ve never used my mouth-words before, but it feels good and I like it.  “I love air and words and you Vexen and R-1 and this lab and smells and wait no it smells kinda funny but I like it no orange syrup in my nose yay~”

Vexen sighs for some reason and shakes his head.  “Zexion, I told you not to meddle with the personality data…”

“Zexion!  That’s right!  I love Zexion too!”  I turn to where the short one is staring, just with one eye.  Does he have another eye under his hair?  I try to run over to peek under and see, but Vexen holds me still.

“You are a replica, Two.  You cannot ‘love’ anything.”  Vexen dries me off with a fluffy towel while he talks.  But why does he say that?  That’s not very nice.  But Vexen’s smart, so I don’t argue.

“Okay,” I pout.  Zexion’s still staring.  He does that a lot; a wonder if he needs to blink.  Now that I’m not in the Tank, I have to blink.  Blink.  Blink.  Blinking’s fun too.  “I love blin—”  Oh.  I don’t love blinking.  Oh well.

“I can assure you, Vexen, I did not ‘meddle’ with anything.  You made it quite clear that this is _your_ experiment.  Though I still fail to see why we need another Riku replica; the first is preforming remarkably well.”

Vexen glares.  Are they fighting?  Is this what fighting looks like?  I wish R-1 was awake so I could mind-ask him, but he had training already today, and he says training makes him sleepy.  “You may be a prodigy, Zexion, but do not underestimate what I’ve learned from experience.  It’s the basic scientific method; no experiment can be considered valid unless it is successfully repeated.  We must be certain our method is perfect before we begin No. _i.”_

“Fair enough,” Zexion concedes, “but the Superior will not wait long while you play with your prototypes.”

He sweeps out of the room before I can peek under his hair.  I’ll have to try again later; Vexen still won’t let me go.

“Hmph.  Still barely a child, assuming he can criticize my life’s work…”  I don’t like Vexen frowning.  Maybe I can make him happy.

“I like you’re life’s work,” I tell him and grin.  “Uh, what’s your life’s work?”

It works; he smiles at me, yay!  “It is no less than the creation of life.  Beings that can subsist on the memories of others, with no hearts of their own.  Safe from the plague of the Heartless.”

I stare, blink.  I’m only Four, I don’t get all of it yet.

“You, Two,” he clarifies impatiently.  “You and One.  Beings made from memories, with no hearts.”

I grin.  I love grinning.  “Me?  Really?”

He turns away, I can’t see if he’s smiling again.  Aww.  “Yes.  Now come, Two.  It is time you met One.”

“Oh, but I have met One.”  I adjust the towel over my shoulders, it’s soft and fluffy on my skin, and not heavy like the orange syrup.  “He mind-talks to me.  So we wouldn’t be lonely.”

Vexen spins around, I didn’t know he could move that fast.  “Mind-talks?  As in telepathy?”

“Tell-a-what?”  My eyebrows scrunch.  R-1 did say that Vexen likes big words.

“Nevermind.”  He shakes his head.  “I must run diagnostics immediately—there is no precedent—”

“So… what do I do?”  I ask; he’s already shuffling away so fast, and my legs don’t know how to walk much yet without him supporting me.  I have to sit down.

“Here.”  He quickly tosses me a paper and some highlighters that were lying on a file cabinet.  The paper has some funny graphs on it; I don’t know what they mean.  “Entertain yourself; I will send Lexaeus momentarily.”

He’s gone before I can tell him thank you.  Frowning, I pop the lid off of a pink highlighter.  My brain was programmed to know the word ‘highlighter,’ but R-1 never said it before.  I’m not sure what it does.

I touch the tip of it… and my finger is pink!  This ‘highlighter’… it makes things change color!

“Haha!”  I laugh, holding it in my fist and making a bright streak across the back of the paper.  “I love highlighters!  They make colors!  I love colors!”

But it’s not just pink, there’s purple, blue, green, yellow, even orange like the tank…  “COLORS!”

I make the paper beautiful.  All the colors, all mixing together, loving each other.  Can colors love?  I’m not supposed to, but I don’t know if Vexen’s right, because looking at these colors, I think that feels like love.  But maybe I don’t know.  I am only Four days old.

But Four is a good day.  I love Four.

**Author's Note:**

> Song Credits: “Dani California” by Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Green Grass and High Tides” by The Outlaws, and “Dead on Arrival” by Fall Out Boy (color word substitutions by R-2 :P).
> 
> They’re playing Rock Band on Wii because I’m a Nintendo noob and it’s the only console I’ve played it on. :P Also, pretty much right after this is when Axel would’ve gone to check his room with the Assassin the second time.
> 
> There we have it. Unless something dramatically comes to me and demands to be written, this is the last I plan on writing in this universe. Sorry guys, but I’m not doing a sequel. Too many other things I want to write, and I’ve pretty much done everything I want to with this universe. Eventually R-2 and Xenan (and maybe Demyx) probably would’ve run away from the Organization, and Axel, Rox, and Xi probably would help Sora defeat Xemnas. There’d probably be some AkuSai angst in there somewhere. I’ll let you guys use your imaginations. However, just in case I do decide to add more bonus chapters, they'll be in this same fic.
> 
> Review reply to Anon: I said I might have an epilogue in case I chose to go with the alternate ending, but with this ending there wasn’t anything else I felt the need to wrap up. It’s implied that Roxas and Xion get to meet Sora when he wakes up, but I don’t think I could write it very interestingly. I’m glad you enjoyed the ending, and I’m glad I could make it a little less angsty too. Since this story has gone on so long, I think you can see that my writing style in general was just getting too serious, and I’d wanted to end it more lightly ever since I started the Prank War plot arc. For all the abuse Xenan throws at Xigbar, he’s always been one of my favorite characters. I really appreciate you sticking with this story to the end!
> 
> Thanks again, everyone!


End file.
